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The title is on purpose a bit 'teasing'

If you explore or scan a lot, then the biters bases will over time expand and grow and you'll get in the end a sea of red nests everywhere. The area is basically condemned to expansion, barring massive efforts.

If now you only explore areas where you can, in a not too long time, plop a few structures that will prevent bitters extension, then you'll be in a much better position as time passes.

There is an area of 2 chunks deep, in the dark, that are instanciated and active beyond the explored map, so you need to 'garrison' not too far from this dark border, to be sure no biter arrives from the unknown and plop a base.

my 2 newbie cents anyway... I'll welcome any discussion on the topic of exploration strategy by the way, something that is not that discussed here (at least much less than many topics!)

Enemies expand at 2 bases per hour, no matter how much you explore.

Exploring just gives them different places to expand in.

DaveMcW wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2019 5:14 am Enemies expand at 2 bases per hour, no matter how much you explore.

Actually, I think it's random, or at least variable. By default, it's minimim 4 minutes between 2 expansions, maximum 1 hour, but it can be tweaked in the map gen.

Porter65 wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2019 5:08 am If now you only explore areas where you can, in a not too long time, plop a few structures that will prevent bitters extension

Also, there used to be a very large radius around one's constructions where no expansions could be built, but this has dramatically been reduced some time ago, and you can't prevent expansions by building a wall or a power pole every now and then.

Still in debug you see how much a chunk is interesting, expansion wise. Are you sure that the value don't go down if you place structures? I need to check...

It's worth noting that any chunk which has pollution automatically comes into existence whether or not you have explored it.

BlakeMW wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:12 am It's worth noting that any chunk which has pollution automatically comes into existence whether or not you have explored it.

This.

Was already going to write the same. Pollution automatically expands your map as necessary... for the sake of trying to get the pollution levels down to 0.


So if you have a huge red blob covering all your explored area (mostly the case in my bases because I like it dirty)... then you can be sure it will be several more chunks in the dark already... long before you go there yourself or explore it with radar.

Koub wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2019 5:23 am

DaveMcW wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2019 5:14 am Enemies expand at 2 bases per hour, no matter how much you explore.

Actually, I think it's random, or at least variable. By default, it's minimim 4 minutes between 2 expansions, maximum 1 hour, but it can be tweaked in the map gen.

I've been wondering whether that scaled with generated world or not...
Still, finding the right places to expand to is IMHO more important than having them covered with nests later !

Koub wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2019 5:23 am

Porter65 wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2019 5:08 am If now you only explore areas where you can, in a not too long time, plop a few structures that will prevent bitters extension

Also, there used to be a very large radius around one's constructions where no expansions could be built, but this has dramatically been reduced some time ago, and you can't prevent expansions by building a wall or a power pole every now and then.

Porter65 wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2019 5:44 am Still in debug you see how much a chunk is interesting, expansion wise. Are you sure that the value don't go down if you place structures? I need to check...

Yeah, I've recently noticed that rails lower the chances that biters will settle nearby... confirmed by the debug mode !

MeduSalem wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2019 1:29 pm

BlakeMW wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2019 10:12 am It's worth noting that any chunk which has pollution automatically comes into existence whether or not you have explored it.

This.

Was already going to write the same. Pollution automatically expands your map as necessary... for the sake of trying to get the pollution levels down to 0.


So if you have a huge red blob covering all your explored area (mostly the case in my bases because I like it dirty)... then you can be sure it will be several more chunks in the dark already... long before you go there yourself or explore it with radar.

This is one reason why I disabled pollution on my "relaxed" megabase map. Not so much to save UPS on pollution itself (apparently that is not much) but to save game size. I have turned expansion up, but enemies pretty much don't expand outside radar range.

Then I went wandering in search of tasty ores and my autosave went slow pretty fast. Doh.

As an aside, I recommend such settings for those who want some biter action but focus on megabase. no pollution + no evolution + rapid expansion + large scale enemy nests = chilled gameplay but maximum squashing with trains and heavy artillery. Surprisingly fun settings